Firewall
by Trent Roman
Summary: The crew must keep a young hacker with information they need out of the Agent's hands... but the only solution could be their worst problem.


Disclaimer: The Matrix (the movie) belongs to the Wachowski brothers, as do all their characters. I simply stole them from the screen and made them run around in my little rat maze. The story is set before the events in the movie, because there are more characters, and I feel that Neo is too powerful a character for me to use in my first Matrix fanfic. Maybe, if people like this story, I'll write another one set after the movie. Note that I am no expert in computers, and have taken some liberties in the story below. Also note that I don't own a copy of the Matrix, so if you see any mistakes, either computer or Matrix related, please advise me and I will fix it as much as I can. **Revised edition notes:** I've gone through the feedback I received for the first version, and have made a few changes to the story. Mostly this is spelling and grammar. If you've already read the story, you can just skip ahead to the before-last paragraph where I try to clear up the purpose of the transmission. I'd like to heartily thank Byl Glinka for all his editing efforts.

# Firewall

## Trent Roman

Socially maladjusted would not be the term used by anybody except professions psychologists to describe Gerald Bentmoor, a.k.a. Puck. Misanthropic would not be the term used by anybody but family (had they still been on speaking terms), friends (if he had any) and people too polite to say what really on their mind. But most people are content with three little letters to describe Mr. Bentmoor: an _S, an __O and a __B._

Not that Puck cared. He was perfectly content living in his squalid little apartment, surrounded by computers, eating from Chinese food containers every other night. He though of himself as a man who was satisfied with the basic necessities in life: food, water, shelter, a fast modem and the opportunity to cause a little havoc and mayhem. 

Just a little. 

He hadn't really meant to do any harm with what he did that day two years ago. He though it was funny, all those grown men walking around in expensive suits that were just like any other suits except for the label, with their sleek black briefcases that looked like fighter jets for paperwork. All those people who spent their days and nights looking at a bunch of numbers go by on a screen, reports clutched so tightly in their hands the paper was permanently creased. He figured he'd give them a break. Time to get a quick coffee, something to laugh about around their vaunted water coolers.

He changed all those little numbers into zeros. 

It hadn't been easy, and he'd actually enjoyed the challenge.

He only had a passing familiarity with stock markets. He thought that all the little numbers represented the worth of a stock, indicated the changes in value for better or worse. If those silly people saw that everything was the same, they would be able to take a break. Nothing was changing, so they could relax their vise-like grips on their precious papers.

It was supposed to be a practical joke, laden with social commentary. He was expecting newspapers and news shows to report the incident with "On the lighter side of the news…"

A man had killed himself. Stuck a gun in his mouth. Pulled the trigger. Bang. Bye-bye.

It bothered Puck. Not that he would admit it.

He had been able to hack into his medical accounts afterwards. Age 46. Two daughters, 14 and 17. Wore low-prescription contact lenses. Had been treated twice for stress-related ulcers.

But the past was the past. There was nothing Puck, with his not-inconsiderable computer abilities could do about it. But ever since, Puck had been careful to keep his "jokes" rather low key. Stuffed that would bother only a few selected assholes, who deserved what they got according to the information Puck could dig up on them. It was because he didn't want to hurt any innocents again. Plus, the FBI was still looking for him (they weren't able to trace the hack; there's a reason why many hackers say that FBI doesn't stand for "Federal Bureau of Investigation" but for "Fucked be I").

He had, of course, switched his call sign. That's when he took up the name of Puck, who was the impish character for Shakespeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream. Not a guy you'd like to cross, or even bump into on a bad day, but essentially nothing but a trickster._

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Of course, every trickster has his limits.

"Open up in there!"

"Who is it?" came a familiar female voice.

"It's Puck," he said. Even he referred to himself as Puck, now. It was the perfect description of how he was.

The door swung open as much as the rusted faked-gold chain would let it.

"I cannot believe you actually came back here!"

"I forgot my toothbrush," Puck said uncharitably.

"I burnt it, along with the rest of your stuff, asshole!"

"What? Just because of a little spat?"

"_Little spat?! You spent twenty minutes insulting me, and then walked off why __I tried to say something."_

"Your point being…?"

"My point being, Puck, that you are a jackass, and that I was perfectly justified in doing what I did. Now if you don't get out of my sight, I'm calling the cops." Then she slammed the door in his face. 

Puck knocked again, but she refused to answer. Finally he moved out to the side of the tall, gray apartment building in which his former girlfriend was housed, located what he though was her window, I cried out with his usual social tact: "You're the worst lay I ever had!"

There was a scream that carried no words but conveyed the message of anger and frustration quite well. And just in case Puck didn't get that point, she followed the roar with a blue (and very breakable) lamp. It shattered at Puck's feet, ceramics spinning out into every direction. Puck realized things were starting to get a little too hot around here. He beat a tactical retreat in the direction of the subway station, still muttering invectives under his breath. 

Now he was going to have to find a new girlfriend (not to mention a new toothbrush). It wasn't going to be easy. He seemed to alienate everybody he came into contact with. Maybe it was his fault after all. Maybe he needed to be less insulting and more receptive…

Bah.

Puck got onto the subway and rode it all the way to his own apartment, basked in the comforting glow of the computer terminals, which never did anything to him no matter how much attitude he had.

* * *

An entire world away from Puck's apartment, the crew of the Neb were having their own problems, these much more important than Puck's petty social difficulties. Something was going on in the Matrix. Something big. And they had no idea what it was.

"I have no idea what this is," Tank said.

"What's the problem?" Morpheus asked him.

"It's written in code. I mean, not the usual Matrix code. This line of data seems to be encrypted differently than the rest of the Matrix."

"Can you venture any guesses?"

"It could be some kind of communication. It could be the plans for something secret in the Matrix. It could be a new form of Matrix coding, in which case we're all going to have to learn how to read the Matrix all over again."

"I'm going to get Cypher and Mouse. Maybe they can help." Morpheus walked over to the back of the ship to go find his two crewmembers. 

* * *

Puck sat down at his main terminal, logged into several dummy accounts (he always did this, even if he wasn't planning to do anything illegal), and began searching the web, not looking for anything in particular. He was more upset about his recent breakup than he would like to admit, but hacking always distracted him from his everyday problems. He picked a company at random from the Internet Yellow Pages, and decided to hack into its board of directors personal accounts to see what dirt he could dig up.

* * *

Tank, Cypher and Mouse had been studying the streaming abnormal code in the Matrix for a few minutes, concentrating in silence. Finally, Morpheus, leaning over their shoulders, asked:

"Well, what do you think?"

"It's not a program," said Mouse. "If it was, it would have some sort of underlying structure, and although there is repetition, it's not the kind that you could build a base around."

"I don't think its part of the Matrix's normal structure either," said Dozer. "It's just too long to represent a building or a person… the only thing I could realistically see it being is a monument, or a massive underground complex."

"And it can't be a monument," completed Morpheus, "because the people on the inside would realize that something is wrong. So that leaves us with a massive underground complex… a headquarters for Agents? No, that wouldn't make much sense."

"Well," Cypher piped up in a grating voice, "If you want my opinion, it's some kind of communication. The machines are trying to tell something to their Agents on the inside, and they don't want anybody else to find out. Short of recalling all those clones, they decided to embed the message inside the very structure of the Matrix, hoping that we wouldn't notice, that nobody would be monitoring this section at this time."

"In other words, we got lucky," Morpheus said. "So, what does the message say?"

"Well, that's the problem. We have been recording this thing since it first appeared but… those paranoid little machines decided to encrypt it also… you know, just in case."

"Can you decrypt it?"

"Possibly, if given a lot of time. The problem is, those machines are bound to come up with something complex. If I don't have a decoding key, it might take me months to decipher."

"Where could we get such a key?"

"Well, that's another problem. They probably used something their agents were already programmed with. So, unless we capture an Agent, we don't have any key."

Mouse chuckled dryly. That probably wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"You know, Morpheus," Tank said with a malicious glint in his eyes, "Since this is a transmission and not actually a part of the Matrix… we could treat this as just another transmission. Meaning it can be intercepted, like we have here… and it can be jammed."

"You're saying that we can block this transmission."

"Yes, it should be easy to rig up a device to interrupt their transmission… but it would have to be used from the inside, at the point in the Matrix where they've attempted to hide the signal."

"You guys get to work on that device right now. It'll be great to have the Agents be the ones out of touch with HQ for once." Morpheus walked over to the engineering section, where Switch and Apoc were fixing some minor hull damage with blowtorches. "Where's Trinity?"

"Sleeping, I think," answered Apoc. Morpheus hesitated. It was so rare that any of them got any rest… but there was work to be done.

"Go wake her up, you two are going in."

Apoc acknowledged the order with a nod of his head, and proceeded to the cramped crew chambers, to wake up Trinity. Morpheus returned to the cockpit, where Tank, Dozer, Cypher and Mouse were all bent over what looked like a silver cylinder. Mouse looked up from the exposed circuitry of the cylinder and said:

"It's going to take us another ten minutes to get this thing working."

Morpheus nodded, that would give him enough time to fill in Apoc and Trinity on the specifics of the mission. Speaking of which, the two had just entered the room, Trinity still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"What's the mission?" she asked.

"We've found what appears to be a transmission from the machines to the Agents in the Matrix embedded within the code of the Matrix. You two are going to be to the message's location in the Matrix, and using that thing they're building, interrupt it."

"Block communications between the machines and the Agents," Trinity repeated, a grim smile spreading on her face. "It should help to level the playing field a bit." Of course, this was an exaggeration. Nothing could really bring the Agents down to their level; they were just too powerful. Well, nothing except… the One.

But then, that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon.

"I want this to be a quick mission. You're in, and then you're out. Tank," Morpheus said, turning towards the gathered group, "spare yourself from the construction effort for a second a try to locate some hard-lines into and out of the Matrix for them to use. I don't want them to be stuck in there with vengeful Agents on their trail."

"Yeah," Tank acknowledged, settling into his chair and tapping for information into the screens surrounding him. Morpheus saw a 3-D line diagram of a cityscape appear, which quickly focused in on a few selected buildings.

"Alright boss," Cypher said, "we've got this baby working. All they're going to have to do is flick this switch," Cypher pointed to a black button on the cylinder's side, "and the Agents can kiss their little communiqué bye-bye."

"And I've found our entrance and exit," Tank said from his station. With a few taps on his keyboard he brought another line-diagram to the main screen. "You'll be going in here, and you have to get to this building here, about a block away."

"Once you're at that building," interrupted Cypher, "get to the roof and flick the switch on this thing. It'll disrupt the transmission, and you can leave a few seconds after."

"Right," resumed Tank, "There's an exit-only line in the building right next to the one you're heading too. On the third floor, one of the adjoining rooms."

Mouse harrumphed. "Transmissions, convenient exits, the Agents are really catering to us today."

Although Mouse had said this jokingly, his words worried Morpheus.

"Wait, could this be a trap?"

"No, I don't think so," Tank answered. "If we hadn't been monitoring that particular section of the Matrix, we would never have know about this. We got lucky."

"And it's about time, too," said Dozer.

"Are you ready?" Morpheus asked Trinity.

Trinity said that she was and, along with Apoc, sat in the chairs.

"Alright, I'm going to start you up in the loading program," Tank said, hearing both his crewmates make a low gasp as the cables inserted themselves into the back of their necks. On the screen, a leather-clad Trinity and overcoat wearing Apoc appeared both with sunglasses, standing in an empty void of white.

Tank then took the specifications for the cylindrical device they had constructed, and uploaded it into the program (because they couldn't take real objects into the Matrix). It appeared in front of Trinity, hovering in the "air". She took it and placed it in the inner pocket of her jacket, taking out the cell phone that was previously there and clipping it to her belt.

"Okay, transferring to the Matrix," Tank said.

* * *

There was an old building complex that no one lived in anymore because it was considered to dangerous. But the city had not taken it down because the project would be too costly. So the building usually served as a home for squatters and junkies. But there had been announced police crackdown on vagrants recently, and the drifters and other undesirables made sure to stay out of the police's search range. That's why nobody noticed when the building's occupants suddenly went from nil to two.

Trinity picked up the ringing phone, and without waiting said:

"We're in."

Tank, on the other end, replied: "I'll be waiting, good luck,"

Trinity and Apoc quickly went down the stairs, eager to get to their mission objective. They were five stories up, but by jumping down the middle of the flight of stairs, they were able to get to the bottom floor much faster. The "ground" beneath them cracked under the impact and a sizable dust cloud rose up from the floor. Trinity spotted an arch, designed in an old-fashion way (but then, everything in the Matrix could be considered old fashion by those who knew what the real year is).

Outside, they ran into some trouble. The police had been patrolling the area for drifters, and two cops on motorcycles had been coming down the street when Trinity and Apoc exited the building. Seeing their dress, the police assumed they were amongst the undesirables they had been asked for watch out for, probably drug dealers. They gunned their engines a few times, then stopped and called out to the pair:

"Hey! Where do you two think you're going?"

"We don't have time for this," Apoc muttered. Trinity nodded her agreement, and turned towards the cops.

"We're sorry, we didn't mean to be trespassing. We'll be on our way now."

"Not so fast, we'd like to see a few pieces of identity."

"Of course," Trinity said, walking towards the police officers. She reached into the small pocket (so the cops wouldn't think she was going for a weapon) miming reaching for a wallet, then sharply brought it out, wiping it across the nearest police officer's face, sending him flying of his parked motorcycle. The second officer, who actually had surprisingly fast reflexes, made a leap at Trinity. She deftly sidestepped so the cop caught only the side of her jacket. By then, Apoc was at her side and brought his hand down in a karate chop to his neck, felling the man instantly.

"Looks like we have a ride," he said, pointing to the now rider-less motorcycles. Trinity hopped onto a motorcycle was pleased to find that it was her height, and gunned the engine. Next to her, Apoc did the same, and they sped down the street towards their destination a block away.

* * *

Cypher was sitting at the Matrix code screen, reflecting on how much his life sucked, when the stream of code that represented the message changed. The new, unknown symbols where still there, but now they were evenly interspersed with normal Matrix code. It took Cypher a moment to realize what had happened. The Agents inside the Matrix didn't have the decryption key after all, because it was being transmitted here. All the new symbols and their corresponding symbol in normal Matrix coding. Then Cypher remembered where Trinity and Apoc were.

"Morpheus! The machines are sending a decryption key along with the transmission. We've got to tell Trinity and Apoc not to disrupt the transmission before we get the full key!"

Morpheus considered the situation for a moment, then told Tank:

"Do it. Tell them to abort the mission, and head for the exit."

Tank dialed in the number for Trinity's cell phone.

* * *

In a dirty street in the Matrix, a small black cell phone lying next to a pair of unconscious police officers began to ring. Next to it was the phone's strap, having broken off from Trinity's belt when the officer grabbed her.

* * *

Trinity and Apoc emerged unto the roof of the building; the constructed sky overhead shaded a deep blue and cloudless. They looked around the gray roof, with nothing of notice except a small exhaust vent to one side.

"Now what?" 

"Now," Trinity said, taking the device out, "we flip the switch."

* * *

"She's not answering! She's not answering!" Tank said.

"It's too late," Cypher cried out, "The transmission is already being affected." On the screen, the fragments of code seem to flicker, then move off the screen.

"It's not having the effect we thought it have," Mouse said, gazing at the screen. "It seems to be dispersing the transmission instead of interrupting it."

"There's a difference?" asked Dozer.

"Wait a second, wait a second," Cypher muttered, staring intently at the screen. "The transmission isn't being cut off… its being diverted!"

* * *

"What the fuck?"

Puck gazed incomprehensively at his computer screen. Where before had been the medical report of an executive vice president (he had the claps), now the screen had gone black, except for a vertical column of symbols he couldn't identify. There were ten of them, in green, and they looked like a cross between a digital watch, Chinese and Mayan ideographs. Puzzled, Puck did what he always did when he spotted something odd over the 'net. He pressed the print screen button, and the printer on the shake table next to him moaned to life, making the table tremble every time it passed. Puck turned back to the glyphs on his screen. Someone had sent him this. It was up to him to decode it.

* * *

Trinity and Apoc looked around for any visible signs that the plan had worked, but none were forthcoming. The sky, roof, and buildings around them remain unchanged. Trinity shrugged, flipped the switch off, and headed towards their exit building. 

The leather-clad woman and her fellow revolutionary leapt off the edge of the building and into the fire escape of the building next to it. They proceeded to the third floor, where the fire escape gave onto a big red door. When Apoc pulled it open, the fire alarm went off in the building, and the two saw panicked occupants run out of their apartments towards the fire escape. They calmly picked their way through the crowd. By the time they reached the first few apartments, there was no one left in the corridors. The ringing of the phone sounded oddly augmented in the wake of all those people's screams. The pair walked into the abandoned apartment, and Apoc picked up the phone.

* * *

"Can we decrypt the message with what we were able to get?" Morpheus asked.

"Maybe parts of it… but it looks like the machines saved the best for last. Some of the more common symbols are missing." Cypher looked glum. "It'll take weeks to translate this." 

"Well then, you'd better get started."

On the other side of the cockpit, Trinity and Apoc had just emerged from the Matrix. Morpheus strolled over to Trinity, who was just getting out of her chair.

"Why didn't you answer your cell phone?"

"Cell phone? I didn't hear it ring… oh, it must have fallen off during the fight."

"Fight? Agents?" Morpheus sounded concerned.

"No, just local police."

"Well, from now on," Morpheus raised his voice so the whole crew could hear him, "Everybody that goes in takes a cell phone. I want to be able to reach anybody on the inside at any time. Understood?"

The crew nodded their agreement.

Morpheus turned back to Trinity and Apoc and brought them up to date with recent developments. In conclusion, he told them:

"So we didn't get the decryption key for the message, but neither did the Agents. It's lost somewhere in the Matrix. Which means that things return to the way they were before."

Trinity looked crestfallen.

"But at least we prevented the Agents from putting into motion their insidious plan…"

Trinity lips turned upwards ever so slightly at Morpheus' carefully crafted melodramatic tone. It was the one she remembered from when she had first made contact with the outside world, and Morpheus had given her the "pill speech".

And the crew of the Neb went about with their business…

* * *

Puck crumpled up the paper and threw it to the floor, cursing a blue streak. The white ball joined several others there, all in various states of abuse. For the last five hours he had been trying to decipher the message that he was no longer sure was directed at him. He was increasingly coming to the realization that perhaps what had appeared on his screen were nothing more than a random jumble of gibberish.

He had looked them up against all of the internet dictionaries he could find, first searching only ideographic languages, but finally just looking for something, anything, which could help him decipher the symbols. He had inverted them, decomposed them, and redrew them so many times that he could draw them with he eyes closed. Insight was simply not forthcoming. Enraged, Puck kicked the closest papers, which responded to the abuse by simply rolling away out of reach. Frustration was threatening to overwhelm him.

And then it hit. How clever, really. After all, he was Puck, the trickster. He didn't know how somebody got access to his personal computer, but he certainly knew there were hackers out there much more proficient than he was. And this so-called message, this joke, clearly meant to baffle him. It had been perfect: cracking a code was something that he (and hackers in general, he thought) could not resist. He had to figure out who had done this to him, so he could get back in kind.

Swearing at his unknown assailant, despite the respect he felt for him (or her), Puck gathered up all the papers on the floor, including the original printout (the only paper in the room not to have suffered at his ministrations), put them in a brown paper bag, and hauled it out to his apartment. He carried the brown bag over to the incinerator, threw it in, and pulled down the lever that spouted the flames. As the papers with the symbols yellowed and blackened, Puck was already thinking of possible tricks for revenge.

* * *

Tank was keeping an eye on the Matrix code while most of the crew slept; his only companion in the cockpit was Switch. The green symbols defiled down the screen, representing people, buildings, and other features of the Matrix. Tank was feeling tired; pretty soon Dozer would come and take over. 

Then a new stream appeared in the code, at the same location as the previous one, and using what appeared to be the same symbols.

"Cypher! Hey Cypher! Get over here."

Tank waited a few seconds, listening for sounds of movement coming from the back room. Cypher was notorious for sleeping through the loudest of noises. Tank turned to Switch and said:

"Go wake up Cypher and Mouse, tell them to build a translation program based on the part of the decryption key that we got. There's a new line of data in the same code here."

As Switch rose from her chair and proceeded to the back of the ship, Tank turned back towards the Matrix code screen. He couldn't help but notice how repetitive some of the symbols looked this time around.

* * *

Puck had decided to go out for a walk after the long hours spent attempting to decipher the gibberish. He was still feeling angry, both at whoever sent this, and at himself for not thinking of a prank sooner. He passed a french-fry and hot-dog place, and the greasy smell wafting on the air reminded him that he hadn't eaten in a while. Checking the change in his pockets, he saw that he had enough for a quick bite, and went in.

* * *

"Alright, running the translation program… now!"

Switch had woken up Cypher and Mouse, but everybody else was up now as well, eager to see what kind of results their translation efforts would turn up. Mouse and Cypher had designed a quick program that would take the new string of data, and place the English version on a screen next to it. That screen flickered to life, and glowing in digital green, a set of numbers appeared. 23:46:12.

And then the number changed to 23:46:11. And again to 23:46:10; 23:46:0**[symbol unknown]; 23:46:08…**

"It's a countdown!" Trinity said, a noticeable edge of alarm in her voice.

"Yeah, but to what?" asked Apoc.

"Probably to whatever was in the first message," said Mouse.

"Have you had any success in decoding the first message?" Morpheus asked Cypher.

"Barely. I gave it a try before going to bed, and the symbols we're missing are too instrumental. All I get is a jumble of words." Cypher turned back towards the screen. "Well, it looks like one of them is a nine, but that's probably going to be the least important symbol."

"The decryption key… the rest of it was sent somewhere in the Matrix, correct?" 

"Yeah, but it could be almost anywhere."

"Then we had better start looking."

"It's going to be a needle in a haystack. All the odds are against our finding anything," Cypher whined.

"Whatever's going to happen when that countdown reaches zero, you can bet it won't be good. And if there's even the remote chance that we can stop it, then we have to seize that chance. All right, everybody. We're going in. And remember, we all have cell phones this time."

* * *

On the inside of the Matrix, Morpheus, Trinity, Cypher, Apoc, Switch and Mouse stood inside a dreary looking building, covered in what seemed to be nothing but shades of brown. Morpheus took out his cell phone, and dialed in the number.

"Operator," Tank's voice said.

"What is the countdown at?"

"23:38:45."

Morpheus repeated the number to his companions.

"I want you all to have that number on your watches. If we haven't got anything by the time this thing runs out, I want everybody out of the Matrix. Give yourselves plenty of time, I don't want anybody getting stuck in here because we couldn't find a hard line."

The six people exited the building and into the gloom of the Matrix's artificial dusk.

"Alright people, fan out. Three teams of two, look for anything abnormal. Be on the lookout for Agents, they might also be trying to get their hands on the decryption key."

* * *

The night was the best time to be alive, Puck was sure of that. Just like his namesake would wreak havoc at midnight, then disappear 'ere dawn approaches, Puck felt the vital energy of the booming city nightlife flowing through his body. Around him, neons flashed on and off, enticing customers to come into their establishments and spend their money. The sound of ruff-edge laughter resounded through the streets, and Puck saw two neo-punks collapse onto the sidewalk from too much booze. He noticed the one on the left was female, and attractive at that (when not drunk, he supposed). It reminded him that he had just been dumped by his girlfriend that morning, which meant he was single and on the prowl again. Puck smiled. Time to work some pixie magic.

* * *

Cypher glanced at his watch, where the normal time display was replaced with the countdown. It indicated 18:23:38. He sighted heavily. Things were not going well. He and Mouse had been searching for hours in the streets, clubs and bars for anybody gossiping about anything that sounded Matrix-related, but without luck. He had known from the very start that this search was doomed. Morpheus was a fool if he thought they could garner any result. At least Mouse appeared to be enjoying himself. Cyther had spotted him dancing with some females in the last bar; he almost had to drag the young man out of that place, and remind him they had work to do. He wondered in passing what had become to the fun-loving boy he had once been. But that was an easy question to answer: he had chosen the red pill. Biggest mistake he had ever made.

* * *

_Well, Puck thought, rubbing his sore chin, __that could have gone better. All his attempts at seduction had failed terribly tonight, culminating in a rather unpleasant experience in which he had hit on the girlfriend of another, massively constructed man. He really didn't feel like returning to his apartment yet, it was barely past two, but he'd given up on finding some female companionship for tonight. Maybe he'd just window-shop in a nightclub…_

* * *

Morpheus and Apoc tried to make themselves as small as possible as they slunk through the back alleys. Though they certainly could take on any petty gang of thugs with their Matrix-enhanced abilities, they had stumbled onto what appeared to be a meeting between two organized crime syndicates, and only Agents could dodge the automatic weapons these boys were sure to be packing. They had followed what had appeared at first to be a promising lead, only to have it dead-end with this situation. Still nothing, and time was slowly running out… only 14 hours left.

* * *

Three men met in the gloom of the streetlights. All three were Caucasian males, around thirty years of age, with short cut brown hair. They wore sunglasses and dark suits, and had wires attached into their ears and going into their suit lapel.

"We have been able to track the line of the transmission past its disruption point." The Agents had been monitoring the transmission when it had suddenly changed location just towards the end, no doubt due to interference from outside the Matrix. Without the decryption key they were unable to decipher the transmission in its entirety. Their source had not wished to use any previous codes for fear that they had already been intercepted and deciphered. Sophisticated programs managed to translate the gist of the first message, and the countdown, now in its eleventh hour, but the Agents wanted to make sure they were not missing anything.

"It's a computer in a small apartment near here, registered to one Gerald Bentmoor, who also goes by the alias of 'Puck'." The Agent ended his sentence with a long, breathy expiration. 

"Has he been contacted by the 'outside'?"

"No."

Without saying another word, the Agents moved towards their car. In most cases it was preferable to operate like humans just in case some might be watching. They only reveal their true abilities in public if they're hunting 'outsiders'.

* * *

Trinity and Switch had been patrolling the more upbeat side of the city all night, and were not only unsuccessful at finding anything relevant, but they were bored too. More or less wealthy people seem to value quietness at night. It gave Trinity an uncomfortable feeling to be skulking around those parts, as though she was trespassing on some haven of peacefulness in the Matrix. But she reminded herself that that peacefulness had a price: ignorance, slavery and death. Trinity believed in living free… or to die trying.

They had returned to the more shady side of town when it became apparent that they were getting absolutely nowhere in their previous location. Suddenly, Trinity stopped short, and held out her arm to halt Switch's forward motion as well.

"What? What is it?"

Trinity shushed her, and then crouched so that Switch could see over her shoulder. The other woman squinted into the feeble light of early morning.

"Agents!" Switch hissed. "Come on, lets get out of here."

"No, wait."

"What? Why?"

"If those Agents are looking for the decryption key, then they might lead us right too it."

"Yeah… but if they have the key, how do we get it from them?"

"We'll improvise," Trinity said dryly, her eyes following the conform silhouettes of the Agents from their car into an apartment building.

"What if they have found the key already?"

"Then by observing them, we might be able to figure out what they're up to. In that case, we won't even need a decryption key."

Switch sighed and crouched down next to Trinity. She still couldn't believe that they were staking out Agents instead of running the other way as fast as possible.

"Just for the record," she said, "I think this is a really stupid idea."

Trinity didn't disagree.

* * *

The Agents methodologically searched the apartment in which they believed the transmission was diverted too. Although they found plenty of science-fiction books, computer manuals, e-mailed jokes and old Playboys, they weren't able to find anything pertain to code or the Matrix.

"Perhaps the owner of this apartment and terminal would know something of interest," Agent Jones said.

"Gerald Bentmoor," Agent Brown said.

"Where is he now?" Agent Smith asked.

"He is proceeding in this direction. It is likely that he is coming back to this apartment," Agent Jones replied.

"Good. Let's wait for him here," Agent Smith said. 

* * *

Puck was very tired when he got home at dawn. He'd been up all night long, and while he was used to pulling all-nighters once in a while, the beating he got at the hands of that muscle-bound boyfriend had really taken the fighting spirit out of him, so to say. The looming, gray building with his apartment in the basement rose from the urban sprawl in front of him, as he left the alleys and emerged onto the streets. He caught some movement in another alley close to him, and accelerated his pace towards the relative safety of his apartment.

As soon as he climbed down the stairs leading to his apartment, he knew something was wrong. His door was open. His first thought is that he must have gotten broken into. Angered, already imagining the loses he has no doubt suffered, he ran into the room…

…and found it occupied. At first he thought it was still the thieves, but then he saw the way they were dressed. These weren't any thieves. Somehow, someway, the FBI finally managed to find him! He knows he should run away now, but the three men make for a quite imposing sight.

"Mr. Bentmoor," the lead one starts to say.

Puck doesn't let him finish. Within a second he is out the door and running towards the stairs. He climbs up them barely touching the floor, overcompensates on the turn and slams himself into the wall. He nearly trips, but is able to regain his balance and runs into the door, causing it to swing faster and farther out than it's used too, breaking one of the hinges.

He erupts onto the street like a train, leaping over the last few stairs leading down into the street and pausing to catch his breath and reorient himself. He vision is slightly blurry, but he doesn't know why. He can hear the blood pumping next to his ears, and idly wonders if he should be worried about this. A medical condition maybe? 

Puck shakes his head, now is not the time. He looks around quickly, searching for more agents. He sees a black car with tinted windows, and figures that's the car the agents came in. In case there are more waiting inside, he spins and sprints in the other direction, running towards the other side of the street.

As he runs, he sees two people emerge from a nearby alley. He skids to a halt, ready to turn, when he sees that they are waving at him to join them. Puck throws a glance over his shoulder to assure himself that his pursuers are not right behind him, and then takes a good look at the pair.

They are both women, one wearing black leather and sunglasses, the other a white overcoat that matches her hair. Both have this grim look of determination set into their faces. Puck immediately recognizes their type, if not the persons. They are night people, like him. Those who hide in the shadows of the streets. Those who do not conform to society's ideals. In other words, his kind of people.

Puck would not trust anybody who is like him, especially not two strangers who just came out of an alley, but right now if given the choice between two people who might hurt him and FBI agents who definitely want to hurt him (lack of freedom is more serious than any blow to somebody like Puck), the choice is clear.

Making his decision in a split second, Puck swiveled towards the alley. The one in the white overcoat had begun jogging ahead of him, leading the way. The one in black stayed behind, waving him into the alley then started following behind him. 

* * *

"Should we give chase?" asked Agent Jones a second after the young man had fled his apartment.

"No," said Agent Smith, "I've just gotten report of outsiders in the Matrix. That takes priority."

The other two Agents nodded and with a sparkling of energy were gone, leaving behind the three very confused people whose bodies they had previously taken over.

* * *

_Why doesn't anybody ever listen too me? Cypher wondered idly, running through the streets. _

Mouse though he had found a misplaced wall, and had asked Tank to verify it for him. As it turned out, it was a natural glitch in the Matrix, the kind that is bound to occur in any complex computer program, and not anything that would interest the two 'liberated' humans. Then had came Tank's call over the line:

"You're being traced! They're running a line through your cell phone!"

"Shit!" Mouse cursed, throwing his phone, now squeaking from the sounds of the modem hookup, into a nearby refuse basket.

Cypher whipped out his own phone, dialed so fast he nearly missed numbers, and said: "Give us a hard-line out of here!"

"Hang-on…"

At this point, both Cypher and Mouse had begun jaunting along nervously, swinging their heads from side to side in an effort to spot the tale-tell dress of an Agent making his way through the early-morning rush hour traffic.

"Got one! Three buildings to your right, second floor."

Cypher and Mouse began walking fast towards their goal, trying to look as innocuous as possible whilst hurrying to their exit point. Suddenly, the car besides them screeched to a halt, making skid marks on the road and causing an unpleasant whiff of burned rubber to drift towards the two men. Cypher had just enough time to spot the bland face of an Agent at the wheel before the car was smashed in from behind by another car that was not able to stop in time.

"Go, go, go!" Cypher screamed the Mouse, and the two abandoned all pretenses, running towards their objective, the broken-glass noises of the ever-increasing pileup resounding behind them. As he ran, one of the gawkers staring at the accident in front of him seemed to _twitch, then reformed into the suited image of the agent. It made a grab for Cypher who ducked and rolled under the Agent's arm, then used his Matrix enhanced abilities to jump into the entrance to the target building. Mouse was already ahead of him, running faster than any human could, going up the stairs in a blur._

A woman standing next to wall, glancing at her watch, started to moan, just before her mouth disappeared and reformed into the figure of an Agent. Cypher saw him take out a gun just as he ran by, and ducked whilst engaging himself on the stairway. Bullets smashed into the wall around him, and Cypher knew he had been lucky not to be hit.

On the second floor, which appeared to be deserted, Cypher could hear the ring of a phone. He ran towards the source, spotted a small, black, wall-mounted phone and grabbed the receiver. Suddenly, an Agent came bursting through the plywood floor…

…and he was out. Cypher gasped and breathed heavily as he jerked himself out of the chair. That had been much too close.

* * *

Meanwhile, Switch, Trinity and Puck had figured out that they were no longer being pursued. Holding his heaving chest, Puck let himself drop against a wall. It was a while before he was able to catch his breath enough to ask:

"Who… who are you?"

"You're welcome," Said the one in white.

"I'm Trinity, and this is Switch."

"Trinity… the Trinity? The one that hacked into the IRS database?"

"Yes, that was me."

"Wow. I'm honored to meet you. Although I haven't heard much about you since then. Where have you been all this time?"

Puck wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the corners of her mouth turn upwards ever so slightly.

"Oh, I've been out and about."

Puck frowned, not understanding, and wanted to press the issue, but Trinity saw this and cut him off by saying:

"Do you have any idea what those Agents wanted."

"Yeah, me." Puck sighted. "A while ago, I did this harmless little prank that ended up not being very harmless. The FBI has been looking for me ever since."

The two women exchanged puzzled looks.

"What? What is it?" asked Puck.

"What did you say your name was again…?"

"I didn't, but you can call me Puck."

"Well, Puck, that wasn't the FBI. Those were Agents, with a capital "A". Have you ever heard of the Matrix?"

"As in a computer matrix?"

"As in a top secret governmental project." Trinity figured this was close enough to the truth for Puck.

"Can't say I have."

"Those Agents were after you because you have been in contact with the Matrix. Has anything odd happened in the day or two? Feelings of déjà-vu, objects disappearing, places not being laid out the same way as you remember them?"

"No… but yesterday, there were these weird squiggly things that popped up on my computer."

"Could you be more specific?"

"Well, I was on the net, and suddenly my screen blocked out and there was this column of ideograms. You know, like symbols?"

"The missing part of the transmission," Switch whispered.

Trinity nodded her agreement, then turned back to Puck.

"Would it be possible for us to see the symbols?"

"The screen eventually went dead, and I got to thinking it was a prank so there's no more written copies. But…"

Puck considered his situation. He had no idea who these people were (well, Trinity and Switch, but that's not much information), nor why they wanted the information or what they were going to do with it. But then again, FBI or Matrix-Agents, they had in all probability just saved his ass from the fire. The way he saw it, he owed them one. Besides, know that… whoever… was on to him, he couldn't return back to his old apartment and life. He was going to need their help in creating a new identity for himself.

"But… I played around with those so much that I could _probably be able to reproduce them. Do you have any pen and paper?"_

Trinity tapped down her jacket out of reflex then remembered that she did not carry such instruments. She turned towards Switch, who also shook her head. Trinity took out her cell phone and walked away from Switch and Puck, making a note to herself to remember pen and paper the next time she went into the Matrix.

"Operator. Hang, on I'm switching your frequency."

There were a few beeps, then Tank was back on the line.

"Okay, go ahead."

"Why did you switch our frequency?" Trinity asked.

"The Agents managed to track the last one. Cypher and Mouse barely got out in time."

"Cypher and Mouse are out?" This wasn't a good development. If anybody would be able to talk to this Puck about those signals, it would have been them. "Damn. Can you get me Morpheus?"

"Just a second…"

"Morpheus," came a deep voice over the cell phone.

"Morpheus, its Trinity. We've found somebody here who saw the last part of the encryption key. He can reproduce it, but we need some paper."

There was a brief pause, and Morpheus said. "Hang on, we're outside an office building, I'm sure that there's some in there. Meet us behind the pizzeria." Every crew that had to go inside the Matrix had these kind of contact points, in case they needed to meet somewhere privately.

"Understood. Out."

Trinity flipped the phone off, then walked back towards Puck and Switch.

"We're going to be meeting some friends of ours. They'll have what we need."

Puck nodded, then said:

"What happens to me afterwards?"

Trinity paused. There was no way he could go back to his normal life now that the Agents were on to him. His only way out would be, literally, to get out of the Matrix.

"Afterwards... you'll come with us."

Puck seemed to accept that, rose from his spot on the ground and brushed off his pants.

"So... where to now?"

* * *

"What was that about?" Apoc asked as Morpheus hung up the phone.

"They found somebody who can draw the rest of the encryption key."

"One of ours?"

"No, he's in the Matrix."

"Then... what about Agents?"

Morpheus realized that Apoc had a point. As long as this fellow was still hooked up into the Matrix, the Agents could take him over. It wasn't hard to see how having an Agent appear in their midst would be counterproductive.

"Could we take him out of the Matrix?" Apoc asked when Morpheus didn't answer.

Morpheus glanced down at his watch, where the numerals now indicated 08:21:56, then said:

"No, we don't have the time. By the time we locate him, get him out, rebuild him and then wait until he is able to function again, the countdown will have terminated, and whatever it's counting down too will have triggered. We need to know what he knows now, and that means he stays in the Matrix. But you're right, we do have to find some way to protect him from the Agents."

Morpheus looked pensive, raking his brain unsuccessfully, then decided to do some delegation. He took out his phone and dialed in the numbers to get in touch with Tank.

"Operator."

"It's Morpheus. Tank, we've found somebody who knows the rest of the code, but we need to find a way to keep the Agents from getting into him before we can get our information. Get Cypher and Mouse out and get started working on it."

"Actually, they already are out. Agent trouble. But don't worry, they're fine, and we'll get to work right away."

"Good. Morpheus out."

Morpheus flipped the phone closed again, and looked towards the office building they were standing outside of. 

"Well, we might as well get that paper."

* * *

"So, if I'm going to be part of your little organization, can you tell me more about just what it is you guys do?" Puck asked.

"Well..." Trinity started, walking towards the pizzeria, making sure to stick to the back alleys. "This might be hard to accept, but what you see around you is not real. It is an illusion, created to keep your mind in bondage."

"Government conspiracy? They're covering up something big, aren't they? Pretending that it doesn't exist. What is it, aliens?"

"Actually, it's a lot bigger than that."

Trinity sighted. This was going to be really hard to explain. That's why Morpheus was usually the one to deliver this speech. But right now, she needed Puck to trust her. It wouldn't do to come so close to their goal only to have him run away and straight into the arms of the Agents.

"Everything you see around you, everything you hear, touch, smell, taste, it's all fake. The buildings, the ground, the sky, it's all created by an intricate computer system. This isn't even the twentieth century. This," she said, spreading her arms, "is but a recreation of a time past. On the outside, it's the twenty-second century."

"Outside?" Puck asked, wary of the answer. He already regretted his previous questions. 

"You're not really here. Your body, which you've never actually used, is sitting in a pod, being artificially kept alive, It's only your brain that's plugged into a giant computer system, a very advanced sort of virtual reality, that we call the Matrix."

"Uh-hun," Puck said, not believing a word. It would seem that he had thrown in his lot with a bunch of paranoid delusional. Maybe, when the FBI caught him, he'd be able to plead insanity.

Trinity, hearing the skeptical tone in his voice, said:

"Look at this."

She bent her legs, then jumped higher than Puck had ever seen. She bounced off a wall, almost seeming to be suspended in mid-air for a second, then landed back on the alley floor without so much as a misstep. 

Puck stared at her, opened jaw. Hundreds of explanations ran through his mind, none of them likely. Vampires, androids, aliens...

"I can do that because my mind has been liberated. Because I know that this is not reality, I am able to bend its rules to a certain point. Outside of the Matrix, we're all normal mortals. But in here, our knowledge allows us to be more than that."

Puck nodded sagely, as if understanding. He still didn't have a clue what they were talking about, but if Trinity could do jumps like that, then he doubted that he had anything to fear from the FBI. He still wasn't sure if he had anything to fear from his newfound friends, but for now his best bet was to go along with them.

The ringing of Trinity's cell phone interrupted the silence of their march. She took it out of her inside pocket (much safer than her belt) and identified herself.

"It's Tank. Morpheus was worried that an Agent would be able to usurp this guy's body then attack you guys, so he had us come up with a plan."

This had not occurred to Trinity, and she was shocked that she had overlooked this particular danger.

"What's the plan?"

"Well, it has its ups and downs. The good thing is, we can put a blockade, a firewall, around his spot in the Matrix, thus preventing any Agents from incorporating themselves into him. The bad thing is, as soon as an Agent tried to access your boy, and finds himself blocked, he'll stand out in the Matrix like a big searchlight. They'll be able to track him anywhere."

_Like holding up a big banner that reads: "We're here, Agents, come and get us," Trinity though ruefully._

"We're going to put it up now, before an Agent has a chance to get to him. So you had better be on your guard from now on."

"Understood. Trinity out."

She closed the phone and turned to her companions with a sigh.

"We might be having some company."

"Agents?" asked Switch.

"Yes. Puck, if you see anybody in a black suit, warn the rest of us then run in the other direction as fast as you can."

"That's what I always do," he answered with a forced smile.

* * *

"We have failed to capture the outsiders." Agent Jones said.

"No matter, very soon the entire concept of strangers in the Matrix will be moot." Agent Brown said.

"I wish to resume the search for Bentmoor." Agent Smith said.

The three agents cocked their heads to the side, "listening" to the information that was being provided to them via the Matrix's systems. 

"He has been seen with a group of outsiders of whom two are confirmed agents of Zion." Agent Jones said.

"I wish to capture these outsiders so as to learn the location of Zion and eliminate this threat once and for all. The Bentmoor matter does not take precedence." Agent Smith said.

He cocked his head again, paused for a second, then appeared very startled. 

"I am unable to access him. There seems to be some kind of barrier around his location in the Matrix. However, we have his position."

The other two Agents nodded, understanding, then all three disappeared from the room.

* * *

Fortunately, there were no incidents leading up to the pizzeria. Trinity, Switch and Puck arrived to see Morpheus and Apoc already waiting for them. Morpehus took out some paper out of his black overcoat and smiled with full teeth.

"We really should come in here better equipped," he said.

"Who'd think we'd need paper?" replied Switch. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been funny. Some much technology at their disposal, and foiled by a piece of paper.

"Let's go inside," Morpheus said. "It'll be easier for you to draw, and we can get something to eat at the same time."

The party of five walked around to the front of the restaurant and went in. It was deserted, most people at this time being off to work. Behind the counter, a sour looking man with a heavy mustache called out to them:

"What do you guys want on your pizza?"

Morpheus turned to Puck, who sputtered: 

"Um, two, all dressed, please."

_Please? That wasn't like him, he thought. He events of the last few hours must have rattled him more than he had thought._

As the man turned back towards his materials to make the pizzas, the group sat at one of the plusher booths, Apoc pulling up a chair from the counter so he would have room at the table.

"And now," Morpheus said, "If you would be so kind...?" He pushed the sheets of paper towards Puck.

"Oh, yeah." Puck took the papers and a pen that Morpheus offered him, looked at the blank sheets for a few seconds, trying to call up the image of the symbols, then started to draw. It was a good thing that he had reproduced those symbols quite often yesterday, because they were intricate. It took him about a minute to properly recall the layout of each of the squiggly ideograms, and he often had to scratch one and restart. There were ten in all, and he had just finished the eight when the pizzeria owner said:

"Alright boys, your pies are readyyyyyyy!"

His last word became nothing more than an indiscriminate shriek as his facial features contorted and bent, seeming to melt before solidifying into the sunglassed face of an Agent.

"Duck!" somebody screamed, and the three men and two women leaped out of their booth and onto the floor or behind other tables, just as the high-speed whistling of overhead bullets could be heard. Puck scrambled towards the exit on all fours while in front of him Apoc had landed on his side, had pulled out a pair of guns and was shooting in the Agent's direction. A quick glance around would have revealed that all the members of the Neb were returning fire, hoping to overload the agile Agent with a torrent of bullets. 

As Puck reached the glass-plane window of the restaurant, he finally looked up and was stunned by what he saw behind the counter. The Agent was moving so fast that he had gone beyond being described as a blur, and instead looked like helicopter blades in that he was everywhere at once. More to the point, the wall, bread maker and stove behind him were riddled with holes, a crater-pocketed surface. Puck couldn't believe that not a single one of those projectiles hadn't hit its target.

Then one of the shooters got lucky. The pizza stove was still open behind the agent, and a bullet struck off against a valve. The resulting conflagration of gas created a fireball that engulfed the Agent. Not wasting a moment, Morpheus grabbed Puck and nearly threw him out of the restaurant before the rest of the crew left. They were in the city streets, still in that relatively traffic-free zone between breakfast and lunch, but Morpheus didn't let the young hacker rest.

"Keep on going!"

"But," Puck protested, feet hitting the pavement with a hollow sound, "Didn't we get him?"

"No. They're Agents, they cannot be killed. It just left the body and will shortly be coming after us in another." Morpheus did not tell Puck that he was the reason the Agents had been able to find the group. No sense overburdening the boy. Morpheus looked down to the rumpled piece of paper that held four fifths of the rest of the decryption key. All that was left was one symbol and its translation. If they couldn't get out of this, it would have to be enough.

"Switch!" Morpheus said, running next to the man. "Take this and get away from us. Find somewhere safe to call Tank, describe these symbols to Cypher."

Whether or not Switch was irritated at being taken out of the action, she didn't show it. She grabbed the already-crumpled paper from Morpheus and then split from the main group, running down an alley. To give her a better chance, he instructed the main group to run in an opposite direction, into the alleys and away from the possibly Agent-rich environment of the streets.

And just in time, because at that point a motorist got out of his car and began firing at them, the bullets deflecting off the red-brick corner of the alley, sending up chips and dust. Apoc, at the rear, fired his gun blindly behind him and into the streets, hoping to at least disperse the people there to reduced the number of Agents the Matrix could easily bring into play.

The fleeing group turned right when they emerged from their alley onto a street. As Morpheus ran, he wondered if it was possible to actually outrun or hide from the Agents once they had been spotted. He didn't see how, but he didn't see many other options open to him at this point. So he kept running.

* * *

Tank pressed the button on his chair that activated the indirect line, the equivalent of picking up the phone.

"Operator."

"It's Switch. I've got some of the symbols written down here, pass me to Cypher quickly."

"Cypher!" Tank called, handing the other man his headset.

"Yes? … Uh-hun … Hang on a second." Cypher rose from his conversation with thin air, when to the Matrix code screen and activated a secondary window. "Okay, now describe it to me."

As Cypher began to draw the symbols, he waved Mouse over to his chair. Mouse peered at the newly forming symbols, and understood what Cypher wanted of him. He activated the translation program they had previously designed. He input the new information as soon as Cypher had finished with them.

Things seemed to be running smoothly when Tank saw his brother, Dozer, walk up to him with a concerned look on his face.

"Tank? We've got a problem."

* * *

Puck had long ago ran out of breath, and felt as if he body was now running on adrenaline only. He was singly focused on the running, and couldn't seem to establish another train of thought to formulate a plan to get himself out of this situation.

Agents were popping up everywhere they went, on sidewalks and from office windows, even one memorable time out of a baby carriage. Puck had lost count of the number of times they had been shot at. Their only saving grace at this point was that Morpheus, Trinity and Apoc were packing enough firepower to keep the Agents distracted enough through ducking that they didn't have much opportunity to fire their own guns before the foursome had ran past.

In the background he could hear the sirens of police cars. Absently, Puck wondered what side the cops would be on when they got here. Probably not theirs.

* * *

Morpheus fired another salvo at a wino, which had previously been slumped against the wall, but was now posing a deadly threat to him and his friends. The Agent's figure blurred as he dodged each bullet with supernatural speed. Behind him, Morpheus could hear a chorus of screams rising to a crescendo as people were being possed by Agents or being caught in the crossfire in the two group's running battle.

Morpheus' cell phone rang. Morpehus wasn't exactly in the best positions to answer it right now, but somehow he doubted that Tank would be bothering him for something that was not important.

"Trinity, Apoc! Cover me!" His companions moved to the sides of the foursome, firing at the Agents, whilst he moved towards the middle, nearing Puck. Letting out one last burst with his gun, Morpheus answers the phone.

"What!"

"Morpheus, it's Tank. We got problems." _An understatement if there ever was one, Morpheus thought. "Dozer says we've got Sentinels coming towards us. I'm looking for a hard-line out of the Matrix right now… Got it! Fifth floor, a large office building, with the front completely glassed over. You should be coming to it soon. Morpheus… Cypher and Mouse say that they should be able to decode the messages without the last symbol."_

This last message was not lost on him. Morpheus hung up without wasting any time for pleasantries. As he ran back out to the front of the group, reloading and firing his weapon (he was going to be out of ammo soon), he looked around and spotted the building Tank was referring too.

"Come on, this way!"

* * *

Steve Farkas was sitting in his cubicle, typing away at a report that was due by five that afternoon, when his phone emitted a small noise (he kept the volume on the phone down so as to not disturb the people in the cubicles next to him). In one deft motion, without even pausing in his typing, Steve reached over and picked up the phone.

"Hello, Accounting Department, Farkas speaking."

"Get off the phone."

"I'm sorry?"

"We're testing the phones," the gruff voice on the other end of the line said. "Just let it ring."

"Oh… okay."

Steve hung up the phone. A few seconds later, it started ringing again. Steve found the noise to be very distracting, though not as distracting as what happened next…

* * *

Puck felt considerably better now that they had a precise goal in mind. He had always thought of himself as somebody who simply drifted through life, aimless, but getting shot at for five minutes tended to change your outlook on life.

Morpheus led the way to the building, and slammed through its main entrance doors so hard that the glass broke when the doors hit the walls behind them. A blue-uniformed security guard rose from the side of a reception desk, but Apoc nailed him before he could attempt to draw his weapon. The secretary sitting behind the desk began to scream, but her cry was cut off when an Agent took over her body. The Agent rapidly drew his gun and fired, making several bullet holes in the false-marble wall of the lobby. Apoc returned fire, emptying his last clip, then threw the worthless weapon aside and headed towards a red door set into the side of the lobby, following the rest of the group.

As soon as they burst through the door, a stringent fire alarm went off and the building's sprinkler system went off. Throughout the large building, people were rushing, trying to find the fire, trying to protect their papers from the cascading water, or running towards the elevators, despite numerous fire drills telling them not to do so. 

The red door gave into a spiraling staircase set inside on the building's flank. Already, the water from the sprinkler system had begun to pool, causing a small trickle going down the stairs, and droplets to fall on the heads of the running crew of the Neb. They were several flights up when they spotted an Agent coming in through the small space between the stairs' railings. Trinity stopped for and second a looked down, where it seemed that the Agent was preparing to jump. She raised her gun so that it was pointed straight towards the opposite wall. A few seconds later, she caught a blur of something and fired instantly. The Agent caught the bullet in his chest, was slammed back against the staircase's railing, and fell to the next flight of stairs. _That should give us a bit more time_, Trinity thought.

When they finally got to the fifth floor, it was utterly deserted. The sprinkler system showered over empty cubicles and unshielded computers. In the sudden silence after the banging of feet on stairs, Trinity heard a faint ringing sound, barely audible. 

"This way!"

Puck was about to launch himself towards the sound, but Morpheus held him back.

"Wait. You can't come with us," he said. Morpheus had been giving this matter some thought. Everybody in the Matrix had to get out so that they could blast the Sentinels. But Puck wasn't freed, he was still part of the Matrix, so he couldn't use the other's escape hatch. He would have to be left behind. Like Tank said, Cypher and Mouse should be able to decipher the message without any further help. It was callous, but there was no other choice.

"Why not?" 

"This method is available only for those who have already left the Matrix. You will not be able to use it." Morpheus heard the phone stop ringing, which meant either Trinity or Apoc had picked it up and left.

"But–"

"Once the danger for us on the outside is passed, we will return for you and physically pull you out of the Matrix. Okay?"

"I guess."

"Good."

The phone stopped ringing again, and Morpheus strode over to the cubicle that he had seen Trinity and Apoc in, Puck following. The phone began ringing, and Morpheus answered it, turning towards Puck.

"Go," he said, and then he was gone.

* * *

Morpheus swung out of his seat, and asked:

"Status?"

"The Sentinels are almost on us," Dozer reported. 

"Everybody, turn off the equipment!" Morpheus saw Cypher and Mouse making some last minute adjustments on their screens before switching them off. Behind him, Switch, who had left the Matrix unmolested by Agents after she had finished reading off the symbols, was in the engine room, making sure various displays and machinery were inactive. Once Tank had turned everything on his chair off, he flipped open a casing, revealing a gleaming metallic switch.

"Is everybody ready?"

There was a chorus of nods and affirmatives. Tank took one last breath, and then flipped the switch.

* * *

Puck raced through the empty cubicles, not entirely certain where he should go, but somehow thinking it would be best if he hurried up anyways. He knew that he had to get out of this building, since this is where those Matrix Agent things had chased them. Just to throw off any pursuit, Puck had taken the elevator down two floors, and then ran to the other side of the building. He was going to use the other staircase, since the Agents had spotted them in the previous one.

The large red door loomed before him, but as he was about to open it, it swung on its hinges, revealing the bland face of the Agents who had been pursuing them.

"Hello, Mr. Bentmoor."

"Move and I shoot!" Puck cried out, bringing his gun up to bear, pointed straight at the Agent's sunglasses.

"Perhaps your newfound friends did not tell you everything, but you should know that your weapon will have very little effect."

"You want to test that theory?"

"Mr. Bentmoor, I assure you that I am not your enemy. The people whom you have been interacting with are dangerous terrorists, suffering from delusions and paranoia."

"Delusions, my ass. I saw you guys taking over other peoples bodies."

"Mr. Bentmoor, I believe that if you come with me, you will see for yourself that we are right. You've found yourself on the wrong side in a war, though by no fault of your own. Assist us, so you may redeem yourself."

"No."

"No?"

"I have a problem with authority," Puck said, smiling widely.

"You realize, of course, that if you do not comply, I will be forced to… remove you."

"I think you're forgetting something, here. I'm the one with the gun."

"So we have a standoff," the Agent said, and Puck could have sworn he saw traces of amusement in the Agent's nondescript features.

Puck stayed that way for minute, gun held to the Agent's face, when he made a mistake. He blinked to get the water from the sprinklers out of his eyes.

The Agent was gone. Puck was stunned, but had enough presence of mind to duck and turn around, gun in hand, searching for his target. Unfortunately, when dealing with such technological marvels as the Agents, a mere human's efforts are oft in vain. Before he knew what was happening, a powerful hand was wrapped around his throat, and Puck was lifted from the ground.

"One last time, Mr. Bentmoor… join us, or die."

Despite having the Agent's hands in a chokehold, Puck was still able to mutter the two words that formed a most sensible epitaph to the life he had led:

"Fuck you."

And suddenly he was in the air, held by nothing this time, flying above cubicles and potted plants. He hit the glass window head-on, shattering it and kept on going. Through the thin red sheet of blood covering his eyes, he could see the street below, looking pretty far off despite being only on the third floor.

But it was getting closer… closer…

* * *

As soon as the loud thud of the power-deprived Sentinels hitting the floor resounded, Morpheus said:

"Alright, turn it back on!"

The Neb came alive with screens and sounds as the crew went around the ship, reinitiating systems and starting up programs.

"We've got that translation program working, Morpheus," Cypher said.

"Good, I want to hear what that transmission said as soon as you have it decoded." Morpheus walked over to Tank, in his chair. "Do we have anything on him?"

Tank, understanding whom Morpheus was referring too, shook his head.

"His vitals are gone."

Morpheus drew back from the chair with a resigned sight. He had been expecting that, of course. He had known when he left Puck in the Matrix that the young man was probably not going to be alive for much longer. Nobody on the Neb could win a prolonged fight against Agents, so what chance un-freed human with a firewall giving out his position in the Matrix like a flare gun have?

Puck would be just one of countless sacrificed by the Agents to the machines on the altar of the Matrix. One more to be avenged, one day.

"Morpheus, we got it."

Morpheus moved over to the screen that Cypher and Mouse were looking at. 

"What does it say?"

"Well, according to this…" Cypher trailed off as his eyes flew over the screen. "It gives the instructions on a specific frequency… for entering and leaving the Matrix… and… all users not attuned to this frequency would get a surge of current!"

Cypher turned towards Morpheus.

"Basically, if one of us went into the Matrix without using their frequency, we would get fried by a back surge of electricity. It must have been designed as a way to keep us out of the Matrix… and take a few of us out at the same time."

"But why then countdown? Why not just implement it as soon as it was ready?"

"Best guess? They had just come up with this thing, wanted to implement it as fast as possible, and that meant not waiting to pull all their Agents out. So they had to give the Agents on the inside some kind of warning that they could only upload things into the Matrix using a specific frequency."

"And why the clear frequency?"

"Well, the AI isn't in the Matrix itself, remember. All the Agents, all those people in the pods, and all major changes to the Matrix itself have to be uploaded into the program. That's why they need a clear frequency."

Morpheus rose. 

"Tank, get us to broadcast depth for Zion. We need to get this information home, so Zion can contact the other ships. Once you've done that, start working on transferring our own equipment over to that frequency. Dozer, how much time is left on that countdown?"

"A little over four hours, boss."

Four hours. It would have to do. All they could do now was get the info to Zion. After that, it was out of their hands…

* * *

Thomas Anderson had been on his lunch break when the activities at the neighboring building caught his attention. Already a small crowd had gathered around the fire trucks, trying to spot a plume of smoke coming from a window or chimney. To date, nothing odd seemed to have happened, but the people inside the office building said that the fire alarm had gone off, as well as the sprinkler system. One ranting woman even screamed to all who would hear it that their had been a shootout and some kind of demonic possession before the paramedics took her away.

Thomas Anderson was getting ready to leave the mulling crowd when he heard a sharp breaking noise from above him. Looking up, he saw a darkly dressed body come crashing out of a window. He shielded himself from the falling glass, then heard and dull and horribly _wet_ sound as the body landed no more than five meters from him. 

Thomas rushed over to the man, who was laying face up against the street. He was covered in lacerations and bleeding all over the place. His face was a mess, with a large piece of glass sticking out of his forehead, and blood all over the place. He blinked, and Thomas realized with a start that the man was still alive. The bleeding mouth moved, but Thomas couldn't hear anything more than a dry rasp. Intrigued, he bent his ear to the dying man's ear, and was just able to hear some babbling:

"Matrix… the Matrix…"

Then a paramedic arrived and brutally shoved Anderson out of the way. More of the men in white joined the first one, and they put the body on a gurney and slid him into an ambulance, even though it was obvious that he was beyond help at this point.

As the sounds of the sirens slowly faded away, Thomas reflected on what he had heard. _The Matrix?_ he asked himself, _what is the Matrix?_


End file.
